PPSMI does not guarantee English proficiency

KOTA BARU, 23 March 2009: The Teaching of Mathematics and Science in English (ETeMS or better known by its Malay acronym, PPSMI) does not guarantee effective proficiency in that language, says an educationist.

Prof Dr Sidek Baba, professor in education at the Education Institute of the International Islamic University Malaysia, who said this today, added the policy needed to be relooked and done in a better way.

He said the government could not do just do so through mathematics and science but through proficiency in language taught specially to children taking into consideration local conditions.

“If we look at developed countries like Germany, South Korea, Russia, France and Japan they use their own language and are successful,” Sidek said when met after delivering the keynote address at the Seminar on Human Capital Development here today.

“The approach of the West (was) in using their own language to take over a foreign country, this was a long term policy done subtly to take over a country,” he said.

“After six years of the PPSMI approach the use of English and its grasp is still far away,” he said.

On another matter, Sidek said the country’s leadership needed to have a wise approach, without favouring any race, to ensure continued peace in the country.

“We must be wise in administration, be good leaders and if not the effects would also be felt in developing human capital.

Sidek said the government must be wise in managing the nation so as to be seen as meeting the needs of all races based on the Islamic principles practised by the Prophet Muhammad.

“They are not just leaders of Malay Malaysians in the country but of all non-Malay Malaysians races who practised other religions,” he said. — Bernama